Festivals being fairly expensive to run, especially with the vagarities of weather, Appel Farm has had sponsors for a number of years. At one time it was a bank, but now it is Comcast Cable with Target Stores sponsoring the Children's Village.
There are some who don't like the fact we accept money from the evil cable behemoth. I have to say in dealing with them that this is a case where the parts are actually greater than the sum. The festival doesn't get its money directly from the corporate offices but rather through the local offices. The corporate offices allocate a certain amount of money to the local regional offices to distribute as they see fit. The amount the festival recieves is closer to the amount a theatre or ballet might receive from a production sponsor than the amount stadiums receive for naming rights.
The local folks are really wonderful to work with. They very cooperative and not at all demanding for attention or special treatment. The biggest problem one might say we have with them is that after sponsoring us for 4 years, ironically there is no cable service to Appel Farm. The cable stops a mile down the road which has meant that the intern house and summer camp staff has had to rely on rabbit ears to get any reception.
In return for their money, Comcast gets to put some banners up, places a big bus on the grounds where they distribute literature, has a couple people running around in Nickeloden and Cartoon Network cartoon character costumes and use one of our buildings for a reception. They also get a block of tickets for the event which they use to invite government officials and other they want to woo to the festival. These folks also get to go to the reception they hold.
They order whatever tents, tables, chairs and linens they need from the same tent vendor we use so we take responsibility for pointing out where these things need to be placed when the delivery truck rolls up and that is the extent of our involvement with the technical details of their reception. (Though there are about 4-5 meetings in the winter to review the previous festival and to hammer these details out well in advance of the event.)
Once the festival is running, they are really pretty low key. We only have 2 people assigned to help Comcast the entire day. One makes sure they have all the tables and extension cords they need, the other helps them process the VIPs they invite to the reception. In some regard the reception is almost an added bonus for the Farm because the executive and development directors have the opportunity to do a little lobbying of state lawmakers about the arts funding situation.
Last year they even did a documentary on the festival and recorded mini-concert/Q&As with 6 musicians for their programming line up. This year they are coming back to get a few more shots for the documentary because the rain last year didn't make for the best representation of the festival.
All in all the relationship has been fairly productive for all parties. There hasn't been any pressure brought to bear in order to influence artist selection. Other than some star struck autograph seeking, no one has thrown their weight around to get special access to performers or uttered an arrogant "Do you know who I AM!" Some of this is due to the atmosphere of the festival and the fact that the people who are fans of our line up aren't usually the type that use bullying to get what they seek. The rest is just because at least this particular segment of the corporation is staffed by nice people.
Talking about how the community supports Appel Farm got me to thinking about how Appel Farm's Festival lends support to the community. I don't necessarily mean in terms of gas and food purchased locally though that is certainly an aspect of the support. One aspects of the mission to support artists is manifested in the free admission craft artists are given to the craft fair.
What this means is that the festival doesn't take a cut of the money they make, nor do they charge the crafters an admission or registration fee. The artists take home whatever money they make. The craft show is juried however to ensure diversity in the offerings. The offerings have to be original works. Work created from kits or people acting as vendors for other people's work is not allowed. As one might imagine, even with these restrictions, there are always more people applying than there is room to accomodate. (Only slots for 60 vendors.)
The wares cover a wide range of disciplines. There is a sheep to shawl demonstration (shear the sheep, card the wool, weave the wool), ceramics, metal jewelry, hand made musical instruments from around the world, weavings, paintings and blown glass to name a few.
Appel Farm also has a partnership with the Perkins Center for the Arts (perkinscenter.org). They built a wood fired kiln on Appel Farm's grounds and they use it to create ceramics in their classes and Appel Farm's campers get to fire their creations in it over the summer. As part of a grant program, artists are chosen to participate in the creation of works in the kiln (which is actually only one of three wood kilns on the Mid-Atlantic seaboard). There will be an open exhibit in the Appel Farm art studio so their kiln work may be displayed. If they want to sell anything, they must have a separate display outside so that the other artists don't feel they received preferential treatment.
It may not be making a huge or immediate change in the lives and fortunes of these artists, but the free exposure and the support they receive from the festival certainly facilitates the process a little.
One of the things that is great about the Appel Farm Festival is the support it receives from the various local governmental agencies. The county road department mows the sides of the road for the festival and allows us the use of the snow fencing (granted, they store it on our land.)
The sheriff's and state police are always very generous with their personnel. They enjoy the event because it is non-alcohol and the genre of music isn't conducive to rioting.
The next township over lets us borrow tower lights so people can see where they are going when they return to their cars at night. Our township allows us to borrow recycling bins so we don't have to buy or store them. (Though we certainly do clean them.)
The only negative has been that the police in the boro next door usually end up ticketing attendees as they pass through town. Granted, they always strictly enforce the 25 mph limit, but when you have 12,000 people attending, there is likely to be a high number of people to ticket. This has really just been the police making this decision. The mayor has asked them to give a little leeway in the past and it hasn't worked. Recently, the trade off has been that the county places a digital sign showing a driver's speed next to the big red sign that says speeding is strictly enforced. There haven't been complaints of the boro being a speed trap in the last few years now.
All this support is the type of thing that is supposed to happen between an arts organization and it's community. Granted, it helps in some respects that the center is located in a rural environment where you can establish some nice relationships. On the other hand, the surrounding community has always been a bit more conservative than the employees, campers and visitors to the center. Over the last 40 years, there has been some whispering about what people assume is going on 2 miles down the road.
Very few people in the local community volunteer or attend events at the arts center. That is changing slowly now because we have started offering afterschool classes for kids and adults in recent years. The honest truth is that people 10-50 miles away know more about what goes on at the arts center than those that live within 5 miles.
This is not to imply that the people nearby are uncultured, bigotted hicks. It is just that their interests haven't aligned with what the arts center has offered until recently. Some of that might be due to the fact that more people who work in Philladelphia are slowly creeping into the area. And some of the current group of 20 somethings were the beneficiaries of the center's school outreach programs in their youth.
There is also a deep running loyalty and helpful ethic to the local population. One year I was stopped on the side of the road putting up signs for the festival and no less than 6 people stopped to ask if I was having car trouble in the 20 minutes I was there. Last year, with all the rain we had, right around the end of the festival, a couple farmers and their sons came riding up on their tractors and asked the executive director if we needed help pulling festival attendees out of the mud (Boy did we ever!)
Some people may not totally understand what the arts are all about and may not be comfortable with what the local gossip says it is all about, however, they do know what a person in need looks like. To some extent it may be a relief knowing how to react and participate so they do wholeheartedly.
So for those of you who have never been involved in producing an outdoor music festival on 176 acres, harken unto my words. The Appel Farm Arts and Music Festival (www.appelfarm.org/festival/index.html) that I am working on over the next two weeks is all these things and more.
Last weekend, volunteers began erecting 375 stakes at 12 foot intervals across the main part of the grounds and attached snowfencing to it. This coming weekend they will be finishing the job. They will also be lending a hand trimming brush, painting the stages, folding towels, building temporary privacy walls, preparing the hospitality rooms, erecting signs, etc. If the volunteers auger well--drilling holes for the posts--we should be finished with all this around 3:00 as has happened in the past.
More people will come in during the day next week to help prepare the grounds with things that had to wait, answer the phones and fill volunteer packets.
Today, however, was spent planning how to best employ the volunteers. I will be going out tomorrow to begin flagging areas that need to have hole drilled, some of which will be done in cooperation with the box office because they have a system devised which makes the traffic flow more efficiently.
A couple years ago, I had to revamp the entire entryway layout in recognition of the post 9/11 environment we were operating in. We were already checking coolers, etc for alcohol because we are a non-alcohol venue. However, doing a more thorough check meant training screeners better as to how they could go about checking belongings. It also meant the process would take longer.
Many people arrive hours before the event so they can be among the first to rush to the stages and set up blankets close up. I essentially designed a large, secure waiting area where people could stand after they had been screened so they weren't delayed when the mad rush for seating began. Unfortunately, this required moving the box office elsewhere and revising the pedestrian traffic a bit. The eventual result was a much more efficient system than we had before I think.
Another portion of the day was spent creating evaluation sheets for area supervisors. The festival itself requires about 500 volunteers and they handle almost every aspect of the day from security to stage crew to hospitality to garbage pick up. Veterans serve as supervisors of other volunteers and evaluate their performance so we can make decisions next year about who can be promoted or perhaps moved to a sensitive area and who we want to avoid having volunteer next year.
This system has really worked well over the years. When you are working with volunteers, it can be a little problematic when it comes to sensitive areas like security, stage crew and hospitality. People expect professionalism. This is especially true of the performers who certainly don't want the crew sloppily handling their equipment or the hospitality people asking for their autograph.
One of the ways we have ensured quality is that we don't openly solicit volunteers for stage crew and hospitality. Getting assigned to the area is by invitation only, either by the area coordinator or the Appel Farm staff.
One big problem that some festivals have that Appel Farm has avoided is the formation of cliques within certain areas. Some places, you have to know someone to get in any area other than parking or trash pick up. The job areas are often run like personal fiefs. Not only do you face expulsion if you anger the hierarchy in the group, but if you are in another area that depends on their help, you might find their assistance evaporates or is slow in coming as punishment for your offense. No matter that is makes the entire organization look shabbily run.
Since all assignments are ultimately processed by the permanent staff who tend to recommend people of their own for these plum positions, there is usually a mix between people who know each other really well from other festivals and people who know each other really well from working on other concerts at Appel Farm.
The vibe of the festival has really always been more about cooperation with each other and enjoying the day than jockeying for better positions. Last year I almost broke down crying with appreciation. It had been raining heavily for 6 hours and people were still showing up for their volunteer shift because they knew it was important for them to be there. I was extremely touched by their dedication to the organization and their promise to be there unconditionally.
As I noted in my last entry, I am back at the site of my last job for the next two weeks helping the woman who currently has the position prepare for the arts and music festival. I have to say it has been a lot of fun. While the living conditions are a bit more primitive than the one I left (I have to cook my meals in the kitche n of another building in which other people actually live), not actually being responsible for the planning and execution of the event is rather novel and enjoyable.
The transition from leader to follower has been less of a problem than I expected. I was afraid I might inadvertently start saying annoying things like "When I did it, my system was..." or "What you should do is..." Granted, I hadn't done anything like that when I was answering her questions by email the last few months. Email gives you time to edit your method of expression where live conversation does not.
My other fear was that I might have been hired back because the administration felt the woman who followed me in the position wasn't quite up to par. People have quietly been hired to help out on a temporary basis before. I didn't want to be placed in a position where I was expected to quietly clean up mistakes and oversights.
Fortunately, she seems to be on top of everything quite well and I really feel no urge to discuss why my process was better. I didn't really expect I would, but when someone else is doing a job you felt a deep ownership and investment in, there is always a chance you will recoil in horror at how the other person is ruining what you worked so hard to build.
This is not to say I haven't wondered what the method to the madness was in a couple of instances and felt some concerns were being addressed a little late in the game. It is my first day so I don't see the whole picture and I really don't think things are going in the wrong direction.
My first time doing the job I wasn't as efficient as the subsequent festivals. I see my place as giving advice to help her avoid problems, but not pressing my opinion upon her so that she can make her own decisions. I don't plan on being here next year so the more problems she can solve herself, the better. If we end up staying awake until 3 am the night before the festival, I will be there carrying out her directions and not muttering I told you so.
Of course some of this confidence may also be due to the fact that the person who was my assistant on the first festival returned from overseas to help out this year and the person who assisted me last year will be coming in a couple days early to help out this year. They were both crackerjack assistants so my presence and advice is hardly needed this year. And I know they will stay up until 3am with us helping get things done.
On the other hand, their return also means all the festival coordinators who were present when it rained on a festival will be in one place. This year will either verify the curse or be sunny and redeem us.
In future entries I will try to focus more on the process of putting a festival together than talking about what a terrific guy I am not to lord my superior knowledge and experience over the person who inherited my mantle. While I am personally pleased with myself because it might have been a different story 10-15 years ago, it isn't particularlly illuminating or interesting to the reader and even I get tired of talking about myself!
Starting Sunday, I am supposed to go and help set up the Appel Farm Arts and Music Festival for two weeks. Since I won't have the time or access to all the research materials I do from my home base, I thought I would change format for those two weeks and model my blog after Sam Bergman's Road Trip blog on Artsjournal.com.
It will be fun reflecting and reminiscing. It will also provide an opportunity for me to explore the viability of using blogs as an exercise to explore the processes and choices that are made, discarded and perhaps revisited as I suggested way back when I started blogging.
Hope you will join me. It should be fun.
I read the last two chapters of Peter Drucker's Managing the Nonprofit Organization last night. Reading it has convinced me that I really need to go out and buy the book because its insights and guidance is too valuable not to have nearby as a reference source.
The last two chapters deal with collecting a good staff of paid and unpaid personnel and developing yourself, respectively. I fear a discussion of the qualities to look for in an employee will devolve into me holding forth as to why I am qualified under his criteria for all the jobs I have recently applied.
I will say that he gives very solid, well considered advice about the process of interviewing and training people. I gained a great deal of insight into where I and others may have made mistakes in our hiring and training processes. He extends the ideas I mentioned yesterday about communication and conflict resolution into creating and developing constructive relationships with staff, volunteers and board members.
The chapter on personal development affirmed I was correct in looking for a different position that would challenge and engage me. Even though things turned out badly for me when my employers learned I was looking around, it was a far better move personally (though not economically) than deciding to stay out of fear of the poor employment environment. (There have been between 60 and 300 applicants for each job for which I have interviewed. I hate to think how many may have applied for those I haven't.)
One encouraging element of my recent experience is that I have really begun to feel that I am interviewing with organizations I deserve and which deserve me. I don't know if it is a change in attitude and perception or if really good organizations are beginning to have opportunities for which I am suited.
Though there might be some more things I could be doing to improve myself. The process of writing this blog and the research it has entailed are exactly the type of self-development activities he encourages. Now to get someone to hire me and pay me for all the experience I have accumulated and all the value I have added to it in the course of writing and researching!
Although I read a great deal, I usually regard the activity as highly personal and don't voice my recommendation of books. However, I obviously do so in this case. It isn't very long, but it packs a lot of useful advice into a small space.
Continuing with the Drucker thread. He says that non-profits don't focus enough on performance and results. He contends that while it is extremely hard to measure, it is more important in the non profit world than in the for profit one.
The question is how are performance and results measured? Most arts organizations talk about educating the community, but they measure success by the number of people who pass through the doors. How many times does an arts organization even survey its adult audience in regard to how much more they feel they have learned since they started attending performances?
Is performance measured by how quickly an audience can be processed? Is it how politely they are handled? Is it how often they return or tells their friends? Is it how diverse the audience is? Is it the size of the audience or the impact you have in the community?
Performance and results are informed by the organization's mission. The problem, Drucker says, is that: "People are so convinced that they are doing the right thing...that they see the institution as an end in itself...Soon people in the organization no longer ask: Does it service our mission? They ask: Does it fit our rules? And that not only inhibits performance, it destroys vision and dedication."
He lists a number of do's and don'ts. His most important do is focussing the organizational information and communication flow. Each person, he says, should be asking what information they need to do their job correctly and what information they can provide others so they can do their job well. This doesn't simply apply to coworkers, but to educating ones supervisors as well. Everyone from the executive to the volunteers are responsible for providing information to others along the chain.
Drucker speaks of setting the standard of success high. It is better to be slow at approaching the standard than to set the standard too low and thus inhibit progress beyond that point.
One of the most interesting parts of his management discussion revolves around decision making. He echos some of my earlier thoughts when he points out that many times executives make decisions subordinates are able to make. The best decision makers make few decisions and they focus on the tough decisions rather than tackling the easy, but irrelevant ones.
His idea is that the best way to make decisions is to try to discover what the true decision being made is. Is it not really about cutting the budget, but actually about abandoning a segment of the institutional mission? Will diminishing the funding of one area essentially make the functions of other areas extraneous and in need of cutting themselves or merging into other areas?
This idea seems to be core to his ideas on conflict resolution. He suggests looking at the real core issue rather than the ancillary ones that lead to people calling each other names.
An example to tie both these idea together-- You may decide to decrease the size of an event to save money. Suddenly half the office is fighting with the other half, shouting that the cuts should come from the other's area. The real issue isn't that someone will have less money to work with as much as the decision signals that the organization's focus will no longer be on a certain segment of the market. That segment may attend 90% of the other events, but the one being diminished is a signature event for that demographic. The ultimate consequence may end up being that the people who dealt with activities for that segment will be dissolved or have their duties shifted to other areas. This is the topic that needs to be addressed, not whether the cut should be shared across the organization instead of borne by one area.
Drucker underscores the need for dissent. He uses the example of Franklin Roosevelt who had the rule that: "If you have consensus on an important matter, don't make the decision. Adjourn it so that everyone has time to think. Important decisions are risky. They should be controversial. Acclamation means that nobody has done the homework."
He points out the dissent is not conflict. In fact, he quotes political scientist Mary Parker Follet who said "when you have dissent in an organization you should never ask who is right. You should never even ask what is right. You must assume that each faction gives the right answer, but to a different question. Each sees a different reality."
To go back to the example of cutting a program. One faction may see the cut as abandoning the character of the organization. Another faction may see cutting it as a path to expanding what is great about the organization. They are both right because they are talking about two different questions-maintaining character vs. increasing efficiency.
He encourages cultivating dissent and disagreement because getting it out in the open lets people feel they are heard and makes you aware of the objector and what their objections are. It provides the manager with the opportunity to come to some accomodation that will help them accept the decision even if they don't agree with it. He also points out that this process can reduce conflict by showing that the people on the other side differ with their point of view rather and are not "stupid or malicious" by nature.
I have to say from my own experience at a few organizations, but for and non profit, that this is some valuable advice. With all the pressures directors and managers face in trying to run an organization, these guidelines are not easy to follow. Having read these chapters, it suddenly becomes clear to me what those who employed what Drucker suggests were trying to do. It also opens my eyes to how they succeeded in many little ways I hadn't recognized at the time.
Good stuff I say!
To continue the discussion about Peter Drucker's thoughts on Non-profit management that I started yesterday, I thought I would look at his view of marketing.
There are a number of interviews included in Managing the Nonprofit Organization where Drucker asks different people their views on a set topic. One of the interviews associated with marketing features Philip Kotler who teaches at Northwestern University. One of the things he says is that many people confuse marketing with hard selling and advertising.
He says "The most important tasks in marketing have to do with studying the market, segmenting it, targeting the groups you want to serve, positioning yourself in the market and creating a service that meets the needs out there. Advertising and selling are afterthoughts." The difference is a function of how you start out. Do you look at who you want to serve or do you start with a product and then look for markets to push it into. The former is marketing, the latter is selling.
I will be the first to admit, I am guilty of selling under the guise of marketing. Part of this is due to pressure from above to fill seats and lacking the time, staff and environment to be asking if my actions properly served a market. Actually, pretty much all of it is due to those influences. I learned what marketing was supposed to be in school, much as Kotler defines. When I got out in the real world, I was never in a position to work under the proper definition.
Still, it is easy to market incorrectly even if you are acting in accordance with the definition. You may be clear about the needs you want to serve, "but don't understand the needs from the perspective of the customers. They [organizations] make assumptions based on their own interpretation of the needs out there."
I have been seeing this idea cropping up a lot recently in the articles I am reading. Arts organizations have been accused of not being cognizant of the changing needs and expectations of its audience. One of the things Mr. Kotler says is marketing can "help us understand why customers chose to be with us in the first place and why they're not choosing to be with us any more."
A couple ideas I came away from the reading with was that arts organizations could do a better job marketing by assessing their strengths. Even if there are a couple other theatres, orchestras, ballet companies, etc in the area, they can certain examine the market, see what there might be a demand for and fulfill it. This can range from things arts organizations already do like positioning themselves to the Shakespeare or modern dance niche or offering classes to adults and children and providing outreach programs free of charge to underserved schools.
It can also be new programs that recognize the different needs of all the segments you wish to serve. Instead of only having one format for an audience education program, you might pitch different ones for different segments. Older audiences might like a formal lecture/talk back after a Thursday performance that started at 7pm. Younger audiences might prefer a coffee house format discussion after a Saturday night performance that started at 8pm. Churches have different ministries under one roof to suit different segments of their congregations. This is a structure that arts organizations can adapt to their needs.
The methods that Drucker and Kotler discuss for making sure your organization is market rather than selling driven are fairly obvious but perhaps difficult to implement because it can require fighting institutional inertia. The first is to do market research to understand the market and its needs, the second is to develop segmentation and be aware of the different groups you want to serve, the third is to develop policies and programs that are structured to the meet needs of the groups. Everyone in the organization has to be invested in these programs over the long haul because the desired result won't be attained immediately.
More Drucker to come.
As I noted in an earlier entry, Peter Drucker, one of the most highly regarded management and leadership authorities in the world has written a book on managing the non-profit organization. I am about half-way through Managing the Nonprofit Organization: Principles and Practices. Though it might be better to discuss the book as a whole when I finished it, I thought it wise to attack a portion of it at a time lest I create an entry so long no one would have the time to read it. Also, I placed so many Post-It notes to mark passages in the book, it begins to appear a hedgehog.
Rather than try to summarize the whole book, I am mainly going to note some interesting concepts he speaks of that I hadn't thought of, or at least, had not thought of to the extent his writing inspired.
The first was his idea that the product of a non-profit is a changed human being. In this he refers to the change a hospital, scouting organization or church might produce as well as exposure to the arts. This is an interesting idea because as much as mission statements declare their purpose is to effect this change, the focus of most arts organizations tends to be on presenting/producing shows.
He notes that since non-profits don't have a conventional bottom line to achieve, they need guidance in management and leadership all the more "lest they be overwhelmed by it." The problem, he says, is that most management texts and resources don't address the particular needs and challenges of the non-profit and thus the impetus for writing this book.
One of the negative effects of not having a bottom line is that non-profits tend to view everything they do as "righteous and moral" and are reluctant to scrap efforts in one area to redirect organizational resources elsewhere. Drucker feels "they need the discipline of organized abandonment even more than a business does" in part because of the dearth of resources they possess.
The process of change and innovation necessitates looking outside of the organization. He notes that consulting "current reporting systems doesn't reveal opportunities; they report problems. They report the past. Most answer questions we have already asked." He says the biggest impediment to successfully innovating is trying to hedge your bets too much so that you are safe if your plans don't work out. All that does is anchor you too much to the past and prevents you from creating the proper degree of change to provide success in the future.
Drucker has some thoughts about choosing leaders for change. He says that too often "selection committees are overly concerned with how poor the candidate is. Most of the questions I get are not: What is he or she good at, but we think this person is not too good at dealing with....The first thing to look for is strength--...and what they have done with it."
The second thing he says is that selection committees have to look at what the one immediate challenge is and select a person whose strengthes matches that need. Then he says he would look for character or integrity because a leader needs to be a model for others in the organization. He says that the ultimate question to ask is would you want one of your children to work under the candidate. Would you want one of your children to look like that person one day.
He talks about the fact that a non-profit leader doesn't have a single dominant constituency to serve like business has the shareholder and government has the voter. He actually defines the ones a non-profit serves as those whose "No" can adversely effect your organization. For an arts organization it can be the audience and volunteers and funders and students, etc. He points out that there has to be separate marketing and handling plans for each group as well as perhaps for segments of each group. They may all be coming to view the same product but what motivates their arrival differs.
He says the best time to innovate is when things are going so well, you don't want to try to fix anything for fear you will break something and plunge to ruin. However, as everyone knows, the worst time to try to institute effective change is when the institution is fighting for its life. No one will be thinking about the best course for the next 10 years if they are worried they won't be getting a pay check next week.
It isn't always a matter of completely changing course, but heading in the same direction more efficiently. If you have achieved your objectives, figure out how to improve on them. Ask "Can't we do better?" Build upon your strengths. Look at how expectations are changing and decide how your strengths fit into that world.
He also points out, somewhat amusingly, that "It's an old rule that everything that's new has a different market from the one the innovator actually expected." He points out a number of examples where people intended a product or program for one group but ended up being wildly successful with a segment they didn't intend to reach. Automobile manufacturers have a terrible time with this today when they roll out a vehicle with the intent of attracting young people only to have the parents buy it in droves instantly branding the car as unhip.
Although the book was written in 1990, many of Drucker's messages have resonance in literature and articles I have cited in the last few weeks and months. He says that organizations need to take customers seriously. "Not saying, We know what's good for them. But, What are their values? How do we reach them?" He cautions against an organization becoming to entrenched in fund raising and defining its value in terms of economics lest they "subordinate that mission to fund raising."
There is quite a bit of truth in this. As he says, non-profits don't have a bottom line. Because of this, lately they have been making appeals for money based on the benefit to others' bottom lines. It never really occurred to me so clearly as now that in doing so, non-profits risk pushing their identity and mission aside and making themselves servants to corporate and community well being. They position themselves as the new 401k and health benefits package that will attract employees. Rather than being about beauty and reflecting the human condition, they claim to be contributing to improving economic and social conditions. Fear then the day when the arts are held responsible for keeping it so. In utilizing the rationale that like sewer lines, their existence contributes to rising property values, arts organizations are in danger of being viewed as such.
Look for more Drucker insights in future entries
I was listening to Fresh Air on NPR yesterday where Bill Moyers was being interviewed. There were a couple comments he made that struck a cord with me. Moyers was a primer mover in the formation of what eventually became the Public Broadcasting System. In discussing public television, he said "the most important thing that we can do is to continue to treat Americans as citizens, not just consumers. If you look out and all you see is an audience of consumers, you want to sell them something. If you look out and see an audience of citizens, you want to share something with them."
This seems important to remember in these times when cultural organizations are trying to discover ways to serve their audiences better. As much as we adopt the methods and techniques of the for profit in order to address the changing expectations of the population, it will become important to remember that there are a few characteristics that separate the non-profit world from the for, and that is the intent with which we approach audiences.
Moyers also discussed the rise of blogging and likens it to the early days of the US as a nation when the low cost of printing presses provided "ink stained wretches" like Tom Paine with the ability to disseminate their views of the world. He notes the material they printed was very partisan and lacked the objectivity that journalists at least claim to aspire to today. Blogging today, he says, is the closest society has approached to the democratic expression of the nation's youth.
Speaking of blogging and democratic expression, (since I speak of it so often)I was pleased to see the Artful Manager mention a theatre in Seattle which has provided audiences with the opportunity to blog about the shows they have seen. The first comment apparently came within 40 minutes of the show's end. Since then there have been some additional entries.
The only disappointing element of the project is that comments are apparently approved of by a gatekeeper on staff. The comments are written by a number of people, but they are listed as being posted by a single person. In fact, in order to comment, you have to email your thoughts to a person whereas with my blog, you can comment on what I have to say immediately.
True, I can eventually delete what you have to say, but I have to find the comment first. This being my 52nd or so entry, that will become more difficult as time goes on. There is also the chance someone will read a critical comment before I remove it and catch me when I delete it. As I have stated before, if an organization is going to invite candor, they have to remove any appearance that they censor it out.
A lesson from the big boys in the for-profit world. My sister works in the new business department of Deutsch Inc. (as seen on The Apprentice) In the last couple months they have lost two accounts because new people took over management positions and simply decided to move their business to agencies with which they had preexisting relationships. There was no attempt to meet with the folks at Deutsch to discuss anything, just a call saying the business was being moved elsewhere.
It wasn't a matter of poor results either. The first company, DirectTV had actually seen the largest increase in business ever since those godawful ads with celebrities reading half-literate testamonial letters began airing. Yesterday, Snapple became the second company to dump the agency and Deutsch did everything for them including designing the bottles and labels and writing those fun facts that appear under the cap. (I actually contributed a couple!) Deutsch would like to replace them with another beverage account but it is tough finding one that Pepsi or Coke doesn't own.
A less or two here for non-profits. The first is obviously not to take your customer's loyalty for granted. This is not to say Deutsch did. By all accounts they served their customers well. However, as you can see, some times it doesn't matter how good a job you do and how much value you offer a customer. It just takes one opinion leader to turn a large segment of your customer base in another direction. Obviously, this can make your job easier in some respects if you can identify the opinion leader and harnass his/her influence for your own ends. But you can also encounter an easy come, easy go situation too.
Another lesson that isn't necessarily illustrated by the Deutsch example but bears discussion is not to take your audience for granted in general. One of the things that constantly annoys me, and I am sure I am not alone, is seeing lucrative offers for subscribing to a service or magazine. Unfortunately, I can't take advantage of these offers because I have been a loyal customer for a decade. I really resent the fact that companies will do all sorts of wonderful things to entice me to be a customer but they don't do anything to reward my loyalty much less entice me to remain a customer. Even worse, when I originally signed up, they weren't offering any incentives so I missed out entirely.
The only time I get offered special deals, it is to buy something I don't need from a partner. This makes me strongly suspect they are getting a cut of whatever I buy due to their referral. Do companies really think they are rewarding me by giving me a deal on something I may or may not want when they know for certain I value what they offer?
It is so much more expensive to get new customers than it is to retain current ones, it is worth at least recognizing a person's loyalty. Given the power and ease of use databases provide, it would be so easy for arts organizations to reward loyalty. If person buys X number of single tickets in a year, they get flagged for a free ticket or a discount. They have been buying tickets regularly for 10 years? Their tickets are mailed in a thank you card with a gift certificate for dinner.
Certainly, you may do all this work and they may still be seduced away by an impulse to do something different. An arts administrator's job is to make it easy to at least partially ignore those seductions.
In his entry today, Drew McManus labels me a "theatre management guru" for an entry I made last week. I tell ya, this puts a lot of pressure on me to make today's entry (which is actually my 50th) significant.
I think I will play it safe and direct my devoted readers to ArtsMarketing.org. I honestly don't recall how I came across the webpage, but it has some interesting resources. The web page is a project of the New York City based Arts & Business Council, but provides valuable information for people on an international basis. (Some of the questions on their forums are posed by people from Hong Kong and Singapore.)
Some of the sections are a little outdated and the information presented is a little more general than I would have liked. If you are starting out doing arts marketing or are more experienced and seek some new ideas, it is worth a look. If nothing else, it will supplement what one already knows.
One section of the website deals entirely with creating a marketing plan from pre-planning to situational analysis to developing strategies and tactics. There is also a Hot Topics section that features articles on various aspects of marketing like audience development, communication, web marketing and research.
There is also a case study section which unfortunately only contains one study. Despite the note that you will have to pay to view it at this point, it is actually free to read. Perhaps as they build a library they will begin charging.
The portion of the website I found most interesting was their resource link page. Some of the links went to consultants, but others went to information sources of which I was not aware. Among them was BoardSource which deals with non-profit boards. (It seems like it would be a very interesting resource at first look.) Also included as a resource was a link to a Free Management Library which deals with 75 management topics in some depth. For example, it doesn't only talk about the role of a CEO, but also talks about combating "Founder's Syndrome" where the identity of an organization is so closely tied to the personality and energy of the founder.
It would be interesting to see if the Arts & Business Council continues to develop the arts marketing page. Since one of my goals for this blog was to eventually become a resource for non-profit organizations, I might defer to them if they do a good job. (They are underwritten by American Express and I ain't)
I came across a couple of links about Florida via Artsjournal.com in the last week or so. In different ways they seemed to illustrate how the arts are constantly in a struggle to validate their existence by showing good numbers.
The first was talking about the Florida Arts Community rallying to get state funding restored. It was rather reminscent of last year in NJ because the governor was the biggest impediment to arts funding in that state as well. One of the points the advocates raised of course was the economic benefit of the arts in the state.
I was somewhat impressed to see the writer explore the danger in using economic benefit as a rationalization of support by quoting a Newsweek article from a year ago by Artsjournal's Douglas McLennan regarding the problem with employing this tactic:
"By my estimation, a pure case for public funding of art for art's sake hasn't been made in more than a decade," Douglass McLennan, editor of Artsjournal.com, wrote in an essay last year for Newsweek.com. McLennan questioned "reducing arguments for arts to economic impacts," and added, "Art may be a great economic investment, but if it's not an investment someone chooses to make, you're out of luck. Sorry, just business."
In this vein, the article quotes one of the arts advocacy members as suggesting a day without art where every thing that was formed by some artistic consideration including sculpture, painting, music, film, television, architecture, to the cut of the lawmakers' suits was covered, removed and generally forbidden them for a day to show them the value of art in their lives.
A few days after reading this, I came across an article in the New York Times owned Sarasota Herald Tribune written by the President of the Sarasota (FL) Arts Council which cited the PARC study and an Americans for the Arts study. One of the things he wrote about was how the studies illustrated the economic value of the arts. However, he also went on to state "that people of all income levels attend the arts. This dispels the popular notion that culture in Sarasota County is for the elite few."
Since I had just read the PARC study and hadn't come away with that impression, I was a little puzzled. I went back to the study and still felt the same as a result of the following findings:
"Enjoyment is unrelated to household income level, except in Sarasota where
higher household incomes are associated with greater levels of arts enjoyment."
"In Boston and Sarasota, attendance at performing arts events is positively
associated with household income. This trend generally holds in Washington and Minneapolis–St. Paul as well, although the association is not as strong."
"This contrasts sharply with Sarasota, for example, where respondents from
the wealthiest households are over three times more likely to be frequent
attenders than respondents from the lowest income households."
"Household income, age, and presence of children at home are largely unrelated to the degree to which respondents find live performing arts to be enjoyable. Sarasota is an exception, where wealthier respondents report increasingly high levels of agreement regarding enjoyment of the
performing arts."
"In Sarasota, more highly educated people are somewhat more likely to say that the arts are a source of pride in their community."
"In short, households with lower levels of income are more likely to cite cost of tickets as a barrier to greater attendance. This relationship is strongest in Sarasota."
As I had mentioned in an earlier entry, there are certainly other factors that act as barriers to attendance in all cities. However, the study singles Sarasota out a number of times as being atypical among the other cities surveyed in regard to having arts attendance and enjoyment so closely linked with education and income.
I thought that perhaps the Sarasota Arts Council came to their conclusion from the Americans for the Arts survey. However, that report was focussed only on economic impact and they only collected information from people when they were attending the event. There was no information collected from those who decided not to attend.
It was upon re-reading the Herald-Tribune article that I realized the president was actually basing his non-elitist claim on a third study that was commissioned locally. The results of that survey were not available on line that I could find. The fact that it was conducted locally makes me wonder if there was an agenda behind the data collection.
The greater tragedy though is that arts organizations seem to be focussing too great a portion of their energies these days trying to prove the worthiness of their existence. It is almost akin to Valentine's Day in grammar school where kids are concerned about making a respectable showing when cards are distributed. Except in this case, people are massaging the results by metaphorically claiming that while they didn't get a lot of cards, 25% of those they did get were high quality Hallmark cards rather than cheapie ones proving they are held in high esteem.
A short entry today because I had a job interview.
I came across an article recently about a study done on multi-tiered ticket pricing for theatres. The concept is similiar to how airlines price their tickets so that some people are paying a premium while the person next to them paid next to nothing.
A study was performed by Phillip Leslie, a professor at Standford University's Graduate School of Business. He looked at the 1996 Broadway run of Seven Guitars to determine if the production's 17 category pricing structure was beneficial to consumers or not. He found that it wasn't particularly beneficial or harmful to consumers on the whole, though the producers did realize a 5% larger profit than they might have.
The article goes on to discuss the benefits of some decisions the producers made and how they could have made some more money given consumer purchasing habits. There were a couple sentences that caught my attention in the piece:
"Price discrimination is a practice used by companies that generally don't know a lot about what consumers are willing to pay. "It's something firms do when they lack good information about customers," says Leslie."
When a performing arts organization sets their prices, they are essentially setting a maximum price they feel their regular audience will be comfortable paying. They do surveying and communicate with this group directly and indirectly so they know at least a little about them. However, they don't know much about those who don't attend and they are the people multi-tiered pricing would be structure to.
In an entry last week I referred to the PARC survey that discovered the people who find price to be the biggest impediment are those who actually attend performances with some frequency. It might be beneficial if arts organizations could find a simple tiered pricing structure (airlines need a lot of computing power for their categories) that didn't ultimately hurt their bottom line.
Those who are frequent attendees will be more familiar with the process of getting discounts and thus receive a "reward" for their devotion. Those who are not as familiar will end up paying a more premium price. Some people may end up paying as much as the market will bear rather than the top amount the theatre assumed the audience will pay.
This may be the structure which replaces the waning popularity of a subscription series. In order to make a tiered pricing structure work, especially one based on market demand, organizations would have to stop publicizing their prices. The only way to learn about discounts would be to be in an organization's database to receive brochures, email, etc. where the discount prices were published. The core audience for an organization would then consist of people who are loosely interested in the production series rather than the devoted subscribers.
A multi-tiered system would put more responsibility on the shoulders of the consumers. Instead of knowing that they can always get half-price tickets the day of the show and knowing what half-price will be, the price might be half the current top price.
If tickets start out being offered at $25 and the show isn't selling well, the theatre might email their core that tickets are now $20 two weeks out, if it still doesn't sell well, 3 days out they might drop it to $12.50.
However, if the show start selling well, the theatre might raise the price to $35 and two weeks out email their core that discount tickets are $30, but then three days before might be selling the discount tickets at $40. Or perhaps they email their core a week out that it looks to sell out so get tickets now. (A claim they have to be very careful about making lest it appear to be hype to drive sales when the seats end up only 2/3 sold.)
Since people are making decisions about entertainment at the last moment these days, the only way it seems an organization can respond is by providing audiences with the information they need to make decisions. If the changing price structure drives people to your website so they can check which way the pricing is going, it provides the organization with an another opportunity to communicate additional information to them.
Changing pricing is a delicate matter and is as much public relations as maximizing revenues. The person who attends 2 productions out of 12 and barely gives a thought to the organization's well being might become mightly offended that you are charging so much for a last minute ticket after the loyalty he has shown in the past.
In an early entry, I noted Ben Cameron's observation that we may be entering a time when there is a shift in the social contract. This change in pricing structure might become a reflection of this shift.
I am afraid I found another subject to preempt the articles I bumped yesterday. Last night I was watching Looking for Richard on the Sundance Channel and realized it was a good illustration of how arts organizations can make their offerings more accessible to the general public. (It is playing about 5 more times this month.)
The movie stars Al Pacino making a documentary about filming Shakespeare's Richard III. I was really excited to come across the movie because I realized it was a good example of everything I have been writing in regard to letting people see/know about the the production process.
I had never seen Shakespeare's play, nor did I know much about it other than Richard's physical deformity and the "kingdom for a horse" line. Since Pacino's purpose was to make the play and the process more accessible and transparent to general audiences, test then was how well it communicated this information to me.
I was rather impressed by his efforts. The movie was sort of a stream of consciousness mix of explainations, casting and rehearsal scenes and portions of the actual play. The pacing and shifts were probably well suited to the short attention span of audiences.
They did a good job explaining the play. There were people discussing the historical perspectives and voice overs commenting on hard to understand changes in the plot. There was commentary by Sir John Gielgud and other notable British actors about why Americans actors are intimidated by Shakespeare.
The movie provided opportunities to see rehearsals where the actors discussed and sometimes argued about the play and the choices each was making about their character. It also offered insight into the variables considered when deciding what actor would be best for what part.
They also got into the language, how to act Shakespeare, iambic pentameter and what it sounded like. They talked about how audiences have difficulty with the language and essentially said people are not required to understand every single word as long as they got the gist and understood the power of the words.
For the most part, it was well done. Even if you didn't know Pacino has a history with the play, his manner clearly indicated he was asking questions for the benefit of the audience's comprehension. Theatre's don't have the resources to offer such a slick presentation prior to opening night (though could certainly film and edit a similar piece to offer as a resource). However, the film does illuminate the general elements that would be valuable for an audience member to know. This means more than just covering these topics in a study guide, but also in blog entries and perhaps thinking aloud in rehearsals that are open to the public. Obviously, some of the material would best be covered in a discussion prior to or after a show or rehearsal. It would probably sound stilted for an actor to be musing aloud about the challenges of the text in a postmodern world.
Speaking of educational resources, I found this website maintained by the Richard III Society which contains a viewers guide and lesson plan for the movie.
I was going to write on another subject today and had some reference material all lined up. Something has been grating on me for awhile now and I decided I would address it today. For a number of months now Drew McManus has been critical of how well arts administration programs are preparing people for careers in that field. It started back in November with his original posting, followed by a rebuttal by Andrew Taylor, to which Drew replied. He has made additional comments on this theme since then. Today he quotes Klaus Heymann as saying
"There are too many arts administrators that know about the arts but are terrible managers and there are too many that are good managers that don’t know enough about the arts. Arts Administration programs need to provide much more practical experience for their students in order to better prepare them for the realities of the classical music business."
As a graduate with a degree in arts management, this sort of thing raises my hackles a bit. I can understand that some people are just bad managers despite their degrees and that classroom education really can't prepare you for the practical realities of running an organization. However, I am of the mind that arts groups will be better off with someone at the helm who is aware of the business environment in which their organization is operating. Historically, I feel there have been too many institutions being lead by well meaning individuals who didn't really didn't understand good governance and business practices. Certainly there have been many individuals who have been fantastic managers without formal training, but they have been few and far between and getting rarer as the times make more specific demands of people and allow less margin for error.
However, after some investigation of arts administration programs, I have to say Drew might be right.
Florida State University where I earned my MFA is a good example of this. I got my MFA from the Theatre School. The requirements were 42 credits in classroom and practicum work and then a year long internship at a theatre for 18 credits (60 total).
The FSU Visual Arts School has an MA Arts Administration degree program as well. It is a 39 credit program but doesn't even have a required practicum listed. Part of my degree program required me to take some surveying courses offered by this department and in speaking with the students there, I didn't feel there was enough focus on practical applications.
The FSU School of Music has recently started offering an MA in Music Administration program. It is a 39 credit course load and does require a 9 credit internship.
Here we have 3 arts administration programs at the same university holding students to vastly different standards for a Master's degree.
Andrew Taylor's Bolz Center also has a two year arts administration degree. It doesn't specify number of credits and the cirriculum is being changed, but it appears near 40. They offer an optional internship.
The University of Alabama has a 60 credit, 2 calendar year (no summer breaks) MFA program where you spend 9 months on campus and then 15 months straight getting practical experience at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
Wayne State University has a similar 60 credit MFA program where the students essentially run the theatre company for three years alongside taking classes.
University of Oregon has a 39 credit hour program which does require a 3 credit internship. Drexel's is 45 credit hours and also requires a 3 credit internship.
Southern Utah University (home of the Utah Shakespearean Festival) was the only place which offered a MFA in Arts Administration of 60 hours (as opposed to in a specific area like Theatre Administration)
I agree with Andrew Taylor that it is a matter of the quality of instruction rather than how much instruction you get. Certainly getting an MFA is no guarantee of ability. I think the current batch of MFA grads from FSU are getting better classroom training than I did. (Though none will ever get the practical experience in crisis management I got.) I wonder if people who intend to apply their degree to running an organization (as opposed to self-illumination or teaching) should be going after the additional 21 credits for a MFA.
I am curious to know why theatre programs seem to think their students need the extra year and the other disciplines don't. Certainly, there is the chance that theatre people have conspired to wring a year or so of talented work for the meager expense of an assistantship salary. But I have always thought theatre managers had it together more than managers of other disciplines.
Sure, it may be egotism talking or my attempt to rationalize the value of my exhausting work for paltry wages, but I think there is something to it. There is a lot of classroom work and practical experience necessary to gain the skills to be effective as an arts manager in the current climate. Doing 20 hours a week as part of a practicum or assistantship fit in around your class schedule is certainly going to give you insight, but it isn't likely to require enough problem solving and critical thinking to really prepare you for a job in that area.
An side note on a related program I came across. The Crane School of Music at SUNY-Potsdam has an Institute for Music Business. (It is an excellent music school. Probably because the winters are so cold, there is nothing to do but practice. I've been there.) The institute isn't so much a degree program (though they plan to start one) as an attempt to: "enhance communication and facilitate a mutually beneficial partnership between The Crane School of Music and the music products industry, bridging the gap between music education and music business." One of their initiatives is to prepare their graduates for careers.
It isn't clear if this means giving all their graduates the skills to properly promote themselves and cope in the real world or just educating those who are interested in the business end (or perhaps both.) From what I have read recently, it might be extremely valuable for students to learn the former so they will be aware of the realities and expectations that face them upon graduation.
Anyone have any thoughts or observations about any of this?
I was reading Adaptstration today in which Drew McManus was talking about seeing an orchestra program which was specially designed to show off the technological advantages of HDTV. It reminded me of another article I read back in February where students from MIT were dreaming up ways that technology could enhance an arts attendance experience. One of their ideas was to project a hologram of a conductor in Germany in front of an orchestra in Miami and have them make music with half the world between them.
When I originally read that article in February, it reminded me of some musings I had years before on the future of theatre. With the trend of people deciding to receive their entertainment at home, theatres would have to adapt by presenting their product across the same delivery channels. Arts on television currently doesn't have much of an audience. However, I was thinking that an emerging holograph or virtual reality technology could provide the answer.
My wild idea was that people could choose to plug in to watch a live performance from home. However, they could not only choose to watch from an audience's point of view, but also from the point of view of each character via a small camera mounted over the ear like a body mic. In this manner, they could experience what it was like to be up on stage in front of an audience, what it was like waiting in the wings or rushing around to enter from the other side of the stage. Some costume changes might have to be censored out depending how much they revealed.
There would be, of course, the added thrill of taking the point of view of one of the actors who about to be kissed by the celebrity sex symbol so that you feel you are being kissed yourself.
This is the advantage of live creative arts over film. Movies might be able to provide people with the point of view of being in the actual movie. But because films are shot out of order and there are long periods of inactivity for those involved, they can't provide real time behind the scenes insights and interaction.
When I first envisioned this idea, I figured technology might make it viable by the time I was 70. However, it appears the bright minds are moving ahead faster than I gave them credit for. Be interesting to see how soon it is a reality.
Since I was talking about the PARC survey yesterday, I thought I would continue today with a discussion of barriers to attendance and give a few thoughts about dealing with these problems.
The top three cited barriers to attendance were: Hard to Make Time to Go Out, Preference to Spend Time in Other Ways, and Cost of Tickets. However, there were some interesting lessons from nearly all the barriers.
In regard to Cost of Tickets, the survey found (bolding is mine):
We draw three conclusions about cost of tickets. First, as might be expected, the cost barrier is associated with household income level. In short, households with lower levels of income are more likely to cite cost of tickets as a barrier to greater attendance. This relationship is strongest in Sarasota. The relationship is weak in Boston, where a quarter of respondents from the wealthiest households still say that cost is an inhibitor for them.Second, the tendency to claim cost of tickets as a barrier to performing arts attendance is substantially unrelated to education level, age, or whether there are children in the home...Oddly, the positive sign indicates that respondents with more education (who are also those respondents who tend to have higher incomes) are slightly more likely to cite ticket prices as a barrier than their less educated counterparts. While the low level of Somer’s d implies a weak relationship here, we nonetheless suspect a complicated
association among income, education, and the attitude toward cost of tickets in explaining attendance at performing arts events.Third, unlike most other barriers, cost of tickets is cited by a greater percentage of attenders than nonattenders or frequent attenders. This generalization is not true in Sarasota, where frequent attenders are most likely to cite cost as a barrier, but it is a clear finding in the other four communities.
I found it very interesting to learn that people who attend often and have higher levels of income and education are more likely to cite cost. It almost makes me think that people who enjoy attending performances might come more often if the price was lowered except for the barrier of hard to make time to go out.
The study found that hard to make time to go out was "Overall, attenders and frequent attenders are almost as likely as nonattenders to say that hard to make time to go out is a substantial barrier. The main factor that makes this a big barrier for more people is the presence or absence of children in the home. Whether the children are younger or older, respondents in households with children are much more likely to say that time keeps them from the performing arts."
These results might suggest that a daycare (or nightcare) center might remove this as a barrier for some people. The Utah Shakespearean Festival ran one in conjunction with their performances when I worked there. Satisfying older children might be more difficult. While programming can certainly be aimed at entire families, adults occasionally want to be engaged by more mature subject matter.
In a related question, family obligations was cited as a big barrier to attendance by those with children and hardly at all for those without. The ages of those indicating it as a big problem fell between 25-44 which may partially explain why mean audience age tends to be around 50. That is the time when the nest empties and people can indulge their inclination to attend.
Parking, as one might imagine was cited as a bigger deterrent in cities where parking was a problem. Unsafe and Unfamiliar location was cited as a big impediment less than 10% of the time. However, the researchers noted that the least educated, least wealthy and oldest respondents were more likely to rate this as a substantial factor. "Washington, D.C., is notable because more than twice as many nonattenders cite this factor as a barrier than attenders. This suggests that the issue is substantial enough to keep some people away who otherwise might be inclined to attend performing arts events."
Some of the results here were very interesting to me. It was no surprise that older attendees might be turned off by unfamiliar or unsafe locations. However, the results also suggest that people with the most education and most to lose if they were mugged or had their car stolen were less aware of the danger than those with less material wealth, but apparently more practical education in the matter.
The response of Insufficient Publicity or Information About an Event was very interesting. The survey found that the older the respondent, the less likely they were to cite lack of information as a barrier. This suggests to me that dissemination of information over the internet, email, cellphones, pagers, etc may be important to attracting younger audiences. Younger demographics don't get their information from print media as much as their elders do. Certainly, they aren't listening to the same radio stations as the long time patrons are.
While advertising electronically and moving ads to the hip stations won't automatically bring youthful hordes to the seats, these channels can support a campaign that communicates the value of attendance to this demographic.
One of the other big response categories was related to enjoying other things. The survey makes a sort of "no duh!" statement that "a big reason why some people do not attend the performing arts is that they prefer to do other things." It is one of those questions that has to be asked if you are going to administer a valid survey, but which doesn't yield earth shattering answers.
The response that there was "No One to Attend With" wasn't a major factor overall in not attending. It was a big problem for those with lower education and those who did not attend. Lack of Appeal and Feeling Uncomfortable and Out of Place as barriers were also tied to education level and non-attendance, though the relationship to education level was slightly weaker. This information made me think that an offshoot of the docent program Drew McManus suggested might be helpful for this demographic. In addition to providing a relaxed format of education, assembling a group who are all nervous about attendance could be enabling as it eased their anxiety and provided a source of companionship for the future.
I was looking back at the Performing Arts Research Coalition (PARC) study on the value of arts in the community. I had written about a portion of it back in March.
One of the findings of the study was that people felt the arts had more value to their community than it did for them as individuals. In the cities surveyed, between 79% and 85% of attendees strongly agreed with this idea as did about 33% of non-attendees. This idea that my neighbor needs the help more than I do was recently discussed in a brief Scientific American article which found that people often rate their moral, social and religious behavior better than their neighbors and also feel that they are less biased and fairer in their judgements than the next person.
An additional discovery the PARC study made was that 2/3 of those surveyed strongly agreed (it shoots to 9/10 if you include "agree" responses) that arts education was better for children regardless of the respondent's age, education, lack of attendance, children at home or income status. However, only 1/2 strongly felt arts had any value to adult lifelong learning. Those who attended most felt most strongly about the value. The difference might be caused by the same personal bias. Since most respondents were adults, they might feel it is better for the kids than for themselves.
The study is very interesting in its exploration of a number of other factors such as: quality of life (more educated, stronger agreement. Though in D.C. more income also had a correlation); pride in the community (higher income in Sarasota strongly agree, older folks in Boston strongly agree, but less than half of respondents in Austin strongly agree); preserves cultural heritage (majority, regardless of attendance, income, education, etc strongly agree); contributes to local economy (lowest percentage of strongly agree. Except in Sarasota, majority did not strongly agree.)
These results show that it may not be wise to make blanket assumptions about how segments of the local population view the arts. In some cases, you can't even make assumptions about perceptions based on survey results from another city.
It is also interesting to note that the public doesn't perceive an economic contribution of the arts. I have read a number of articles that felt the practice of discussing the arts in terms of their economic contributions would devalue the arts by positioning them as a tool for economic growth rather than a source of education, self-improvement, inspiration, etc. In most cases, the articles were referring to the way arts organizations present this information to funders, especially government bodies that allocate monies toward funding.
While I found myself agreeing with this idea, it occurs to me today that perhaps the problem is that we have been saying it too much to too few people. I quoted Ben Cameron last week where he listed economic contributions as a value of the arts that the public needed to have presented to it. Seeing the survey data, I wonder if the arts need to spread the word to the public and stop focussing the message strictly to funders. The stats have probably been chanted at legislators for so long they won't endure as a justification of funding for too much longer. However, the community may not have been exposed to the discussion of economic value enough. The arts community may have put a lot of time and energy into communicating with too narrow a portion of of its constituency.